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XP Home and Core Duo, please confirm

post #1 of 7
5/31/06 at 12:02am
Thread Starter 
Hey guys,

Well I ordered my DV8000T from Costco and for OS I chose Windows XP Home.

Well, after looking around and reading some articles, I ran across this:

Quote:
The major limitations of SMP have to do with software and operating system support. Many operating systems (such as Windows XP Home) are not SMP capable and will not make use of the second physical processor. Also, most modern programs are single-threaded, meaning that there is only ever one current set of linked instructions and data for them. This means that only one processor can effectively work on them at a time. Multi-threaded programs do exist, and can take better advantage of the potential power of dual- or multi-CPU configurations, but are not as common as we might like.

Can anyone confirm if this is still true? (not sure if SP2 changed this)

If this in fact is true, I'm going to have to call Costco/HP and ask them to switch it to XP Professional.

Thanks in advance, and I apologize if it's already been discussed.
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post #2 of 7
5/31/06 at 12:11am
Thread Starter 
After re-reading my thread, I think I'm trippin out here and I'm just really confused.

I don't think Dual Core and Core Duo count as a "second physical processor"

Sorry if I sound like a complete idiot, can someone enlighten me, lol...Thanks
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post #3 of 7
5/31/06 at 12:21am
I'm sorry but I really don't understand your question.

A core duo is NOT 2 processors-in-one, its actually one processor with 2 cores.

Imagine the core duo as a tennis player who can play using both hands at the same time... Its not the same as 2 tennis player and that ability makes no difference if he's playing against one oponent. The difference here is that he can play against 2 guys at the same time, wich in computer language would be the so called multithreading
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post #4 of 7
5/31/06 at 12:24am
It has been discussed before, but I can't find the thread.

And the answer is, Windows XP Home will support one physical processor, regardless of the number of cores.

(Windows XP Professional will support two physical processors, regardless of the number of cores.)

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/h...multicore.mspx
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post #5 of 7
5/31/06 at 12:31am
Thread Starter 
lol, I'm such a fool. Makes perfect sense now.

Thanks to both of you for your explanations and links.

Appreciate it.
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post #6 of 7
5/31/06 at 4:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Filippo
I'm sorry but I really don't understand your question.

A core duo is NOT 2 processors-in-one, its actually one processor with 2 cores.

Imagine the core duo as a tennis player who can play using both hands at the same time... Its not the same as 2 tennis player and that ability makes no difference if he's playing against one oponent. The difference here is that he can play against 2 guys at the same time, wich in computer language would be the so called multithreading


Very good analogy!
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post #7 of 7
5/31/06 at 7:22pm
I can tell you for sure that Pentium 4 HT processors are seen as two (logical) processors under XP Home and work perfectly. So I expect the Core Duo to do the same.
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